The city of Winnipeg, the province of Manitoba, a large chunk of Canada, really, waited a decade and a half for Sunday night, when the Jets came flying back into the NHL, cheered on by a packed arena.

The pregame ceremonies were stirring, especially the tribute to the late Rick Rypien, and even though the Jets lost, 5-1, to the Montreal Canadiens, the night still ended with a standing ovation on the prairie—an expression of love for the restoration of the highest level of the game to Winnipeg.

CBC play-by-play man Jim Hughson took that sentiment a little bit too far as he said at the end of the game, “The Canadiens win it, but it feels like the Jets did … and their fans did.”

You could forgive the Hockey Night in Canada voice, simulcast in the U.S. on the NHL Network, for going a little bit over the top. The evening, a centerpiece to Thanksgiving weekend in Canada, was a source of national pride. But for Glenn Healy, accompanying Hughson in the CBC booth, things went further, with shots fired toward the south.

Shortly after the puck dropped in Winnipeg, the fans serenaded Canadiens goalie Carey Price by slowly chanting his first name, hardly uncommon in NHL arenas to get under the opposition’s skin in a big game. The chants subsided, then picked up again after Nik Antropov’s goal got the Jets within 2-1.

“Want to know how we know we’re in Winnipeg?” Healy asked. “They’re chanting Price’s name. That wouldn’t have happened in Atlanta.”

The jingoism continued over the course of the evening, extending to Healy saying, while the Canadiens were extending their lead, that the Jets will improve because the knowledgeable Winnipeg fan base will hold them accountable.

There are two possibilities for which fan base Healy was implying lacked knowledge. One is that he was taking to task the good people of Toronto, who have not seen a playoff game since the lockout, and therefore must not be holding the Maple Leafs accountable. The more likely explanation is that it was a dig at Atlanta, which is every bit as ridiculous.

There is no sentiment that the Thrashers leaving Atlanta to become the Jets was unjustified. The average attendance for Thrashers home games last season was 13,469, better than only the troubled franchises in Phoenix and Long Island. In the last decade, the Thrashers never cracked the NHL’s top 20 in drawing fans. There was no local buyer to keep the team in Georgia, and Winnipeg had been a ready destination for any potential NHL relocation ever since the original Jets went to Phoenix. Business in Atlanta was not good.

To equate a lack of attendance to a lack of knowledge, however, is a fallacy. The New York Islanders, for example, have a doggedly passionate and tradition-gripped fan base—at their less-than-capacity opener on Saturday night, there were jerseys from all eras. Mike Bossy here, Pat LaFontaine there, a couple of Pierre Turgeons, a Ziggy Palffy, even a couple of “Fishsticks” sweaters scattered among those fans with John Tavares’ name on their backs. The Islanders don’t draw because they play in an arena that they are desperately trying to flee, and they have finished above third place in their division once since winning the Patrick (and losing in the first round) in 1988.

That’s a generation of ineptitude, and Healy was there for some of it, as he played on the Island from 1989-93. If the Islanders skip town when their lease at the Coliseum runs out, it will be because of years of mismanagement leading to an untenable business situation, not because of some kind of shortcoming on the part of the fans.

At least the Islanders have a base to chip away at with their struggles. The Thrashers never did. After entering the league in 1999, Atlanta’s only playoff appearance came in 2007, and it ended in a first-round sweep at the hands of the New York Rangers. That was also the only season in which the Thrashers won more games than they lost. Within three years, franchise player Ilya Kovalchuk was traded for pennies on the dollar, as the Thrashers knew they would not be able to keep him when he hit free agency. Atlanta spent $41.8 million against the salary cap last season, more than only the Islanders.

The Thrashers couldn’t spend money because they couldn’t make money, and they couldn’t make money because they couldn’t spend money. It was a Catch-22 that could only be solved by direct investment with the hope of future return, and that was not about to come in a city where even the most successful team has struggled to draw. From 2000-04, when the Atlanta Braves finished in first place every year, attendance at Turner Field dropped 28%. Playoff games famously did not sell out. That hardly meant that people in Atlanta lost their knowledge about baseball, as the city has been home to the Braves since 1966, and it was where the Negro Southern League was founded in 1920.

It was financial reality that led to the Thrashers’ demise, and fortunate for Winnipeg that Mark Chipman was so dedicated to reviving the Jets. That’s all it was. Hockey can flourish in non-traditional markets if given a chance—just ask San Jose, where there is not a natural patch of ice to be found, but the Sharks have had 100 percent or greater average attendance each of the past three seasons. Or talk to people in Tampa, Raleigh or Anaheim, where the local NHL outfits have captured the Stanley Cup along with the hearts of the people.

The Jets do not have to win over Winnipeg, where hockey is part of the culture. Sunday night was a celebration of the joyous return of what had been ripped from the heart of Manitoba in 1996. It should not have been an opportunity to stomp on the hearts of people 1,500 miles to the south, people who just experienced the same pain, and insult their intelligence in the process.